The Reality Engine

Hi!

Thank you for reading my story. A couple of points to know:

I don't like writing wank porn. I want to write full-fleshed stories with plot, character, drama and tension. This is chapter 6 of what I hope will be a long ongoing story, but I will only write additional parts if people want to read them. Events in this chapter pick up the morning after the events at the end of chapter 5.

Thank you for taking the time, and I would love to talk to anyone who reads my work and has advice. This is my sixth submission for literotica (my first four being first five chapters of this story), but it's not my first story, as I've written many over the years. Please be sure to vote and offer any feedback you can. I am always looking for a way to improve.

Note on edit: I have fixed tiny issues with spelling, grammar, and usage. Plot remains exactly the same.

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Chapter 6

Scott woke up on Monday morning, and glanced at the clock on his desk, it was 4:30 AM. Scott jumped out of bed, full to the brim with energy, and he showered, brushed his teeth, shaved, dressed, and bolted out the front door of Maybe Dick Hall roaring to get to work. Scott arrived at work at 5:20 AM, sat down at this desk, and began the day's duties. He tried to go through all that he had learned from reading the documents Dr. Karlov had sent him, and he tried to apply those lessons.

Half an hour in, and Scott was frustrated. It had happened again, all the values of all the equations had changed. Nothing made sense anymore, but this time, Scott was not surprised by this happening. He had expected it eventually. His one week on the job thus far had taught him well, there are good times and bad times. Sometimes, a bunch of problems are quickly solved, and the day is a breeze, and sometimes, it's nothing but confusion and frustration. Fight through the tough times, because the good times are worth it.

An hour and a half passed until breakfast was served, and then, ten minutes into breakfast, Dr. Karlov arrived.

"How was your weekend?" Dr. Karlov asked, as he sat down next to Scott and took food for himself.

"Fantastic, best weekend ever," Scott said. "I finished a lot of the reading you sent me."

"I appreciate that, but you also need to relax so you don't burn out," Dr. Karlov said.

"I relaxed and had a great time for most of the weekend," Scott said, smiling. "I had a bit of free time to kill yesterday, so I did some work too. How was your weekend?"

"Normal," Dr. Karlov said. "I was up late last night working, which is why I'm here late this morning. It's all administrative stuff that goes along with academia, and I won't bore you with the details. What time did you get here this morning?"

"5:20 AM," Scott said. "The weekend was so good, and I felt so energized, that I couldn't sleep."

"Good to hear, and how is your work getting on today?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"Same as Wednesday and Thursday of last week," Scott said. "Nothing makes any sense. I've tried everything I know, and I can't get any of the equations to resolve in any way."

"Well, you seem really excited about failing miserably," Dr. Karlov observed.

"Sure am, because it means the core has changed again, which means there's a brand-new puzzle to solve that will perplex my mind for who knows how long," Scott said. "Wouldn't want life to get boring, you know?"

"I see your attitude has changed," Dr. Karlov said. "Last week, when things went wrong, you would bang your head over it and grow irritated."

"Yeah, you know what I think it is?" Scott asked. "It's Calvin."

"Someone new you met over the weekend?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"I've never actually met him," Scott replied, as he briefly told Dr. Karlov about the problem with Bridget's brother.

"I see, and knowing about Calvin, and how close you came to becoming him, has convinced you that life could always be worse?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think so," Scott said. "The problems I've got to solve are nothing compared to the ones Calvin has got to solve."

"I think you're on the right path towards helping Calvin," Dr. Karlov said. "The issue with many young men who have failed to launch is often fundamentally a romantic one. No one ever thinks of solving the romantic problem first, but if that could be accomplished, the rest would fall into place. People spend an inordinate amount of energy attempting to fix every other thing in that person's life, but the one thing that's actually causing the problem."

"Bridget and Henry don't get it, and I think Steve kind of gets it, but I didn't put it to them as well as you just did," Scott said.

"When is she going to pitch your plan to her folks?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"Tonight," Scott said. "She wants to tell her folks about it by herself first, and if they're on board, we'll hold a conference call tomorrow night to go over details."

"If you need any input from me, or just emotional support, let me know," Dr. Karlov said, as he munched on a piece of toast. "I have some experience in this area."

"You know I'll tell you if anything happens," Scott said.

"Good," Dr. Karlov said. "I have to get going pretty soon, but I will make every effort to poke my head back in here near the end of the work day to see how you're getting along. Tomorrow is my teaching day, and combined with the increasing administrative burdens being placed on my shoulders, means I might not be able to come by at all. I will try to be present as much as possible until things get back to normal."

"Want to talk about it?" Scott asked.

"It has nothing to do with you or your project, it's the department of physics here at Frostbite Falls University, you understand," Dr. Karlov said. "Our federal and state grant charters are set to expire and have to be renewed, so there's a lot of jockeying for budget dollars. There are phone calls, presentations, budget justifications, track record and tenure analysis, and all that sort of thing."

"Something like that seems very broad sweeping," Scott said. "I can't imagine it doesn't affect every facet of the University, including this project you and I are working on."

"The budget for your position, and this project, is allocated outside the normal avenues of funding," Dr. Karlov said. "This entire undertaking is privately funded, which has several advantages."

"Such as?" Scott asked.

"Absolutely zero disclosure mandates, for one thing," Dr. Karlov said. "In the normal academic world, Universities serve the public good, meaning anything that can increase the public good has to be disclosed. Generally, this happens by publishing the findings in a peer reviewed journal and, if appropriate, applying for a patent, and then licensing the intellectual property at a price just high enough to recoup the administrative costs. Privately funded projects do not have to meet this criteria, since public oversight requirements only apply when public money is used. Work like what you do could not be done if there was a public peer review process to it."

"I'm sure that what you're saying makes sense, but I don't understand it, if I'm being honest," Scott said.

"Think back on what you know about this project to date, and ask yourself this: is there any part of it that would be deeply problematic to peer review?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"I can't think of anything, but I've only been here a week, and if I had been here longer, I'm sure it would occur to me instantly," Scott said.

"Do you even know when this program started?" Dr. Karlov asked.

"No," Scott answered.

"It's been running here, at the University of Frostbite Falls, under my watchful eye, for the last five years," Dr. Karlov said. "Now, consider that you've been here only a week, and that young Trevor was here for three weeks before he quit, and that the average lifespan of one of my assistants at this job is a tad over 5 weeks. You see the problem?"

"That's an awful lot of assistants that have come and gone in just five years," Scott said. "If the average shelf life is just over 5 weeks, that means there are about 10 assistants every year, which means 50 individuals were my predecessor at this job."

"51, to be exact," Dr. Karlov said. "You are the 52nd person to take on this occupation. That information would become public knowledge as part of the peer review process. Do you see how a government review board charged with weeding out wasteful use of public money might be the tiniest bit suspicious of our track record here?"

"Yeah, having to train new people over and over again is wasteful," Scott said.

"Oh, that's not even the major red flag," Dr. Karlov said. "The major red flag is, they're only staying an average of five weeks? What the hell are you doing to those poor people?"

"I see," Scott said. "Well then, I'm glad this project is privately funded so that we don't have to tell anybody that."

"Right, and in the politics of academia, peer review, especially by an august governmental type body, is an excellent chance to re-route funding," Dr. Karlov said, with a smile. "A red flag like this one? Well, lets re-appropriate that money from this failing project to a more important project that happens to be taking place at the University someone else works at. You get my drift?"

"Yeah, it's a zero-sum game," Scott said.

"Precisely," Dr. Karlov said, as he finished his breakfast. "Alright, time for me to go, I will try to check back in on you later, but feel free to go if the hour is late and I have not returned."

Dr. Karlov left, and Scott finished breakfast, and returned to his work.

8:30 AM came by, and back at Maybe Dick Hall, Chad met up with Padme and Tammy to head over to Felonious Floyd Hall for their morning Math lecture. As the trio walked, they got to talking, and Padme and Tammy told Chad the details of the poker game on Sunday morning.

"Does anything about Scott strike you as the slightest bit strange?" Chad asked.

"He's clueless with women, and can't hit a ball off a tee when you boil it down," Tammy said. "There are plenty of socially inept young guys like that in this world."

"Except I was texting with Henry last night, you know, Crazy Steve's roommate, and he told me about this insane plan Scott came up with to help a man in need," Chad said.

Chad gave Tammy and Padme the outlines of the plan to help Calvin that had been agreed to at dinner the night before.

"So what?" Tammy asked. "He can strategize ways to help others, but he curls up into a ball when it's his own cock he wants to get wet? Guys have that problem."

"Look at the ratio of guys to gals on this campus," Chad said. "Scott has huge earnings potential, brains, a completed degree, and his own car. Even if he was clueless, girls should still be throwing themselves at him."

"You don't think girls are?" Padme asked.

"Not from where I sit," Chad said. "There's the way you chastised Scott for his weakness yesterday, Tammy, and then there's a girl just saying fuck it, dropping her panties, and asking him to fuck her. He doesn't pass up free money lying on the sidewalk, or he'd never have agreed to play poker with you. Women disrespect him, and I don't know why."

Padme and Tammy exchanged a look. Tammy had never considered this point, and she had to admit: Chad was right. Given the dearth of men with Scott's advantages, and the gender split creating a lack of men in general, even his weak disposition should not be an impediment. Some bitch should have dropped her panties for him by now. It was strange that had not happened.

"That's a good point, and I guess it's just one of those things," Tammy said.

"So, Scott moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform," Padme said. "What can you do about it?"

"It's not normal," Chad said. "I think it is incredibly unlikely that there's something wrong with every girl in the world that Scott just triggers. I think there's something that's different about him. The way Cherry reacted to modeling her bikini for him was just strange, and not the way women act with other guys. Scott doesn't notice because it's normal to him, which supposes something about Scott is unusual."

"Granted that everything you say is true, and we have no reason to doubt you, I come back to my original question, what can you do about it?" Padme asked.

"I need more information," Chad said. "I don't think I'll find anything by contacting the University of Iowa, since it appears Scott had these same issues when he was there. I'm going to have to contact Thomas Jefferson High School, in Glendale Missouri."

"That sounds a lot like snooping," Tammy observed.

Chad told Tammy and Padme the story about the party in which every Senior in Scott's High School had been invited to celebrate the admission of a student into Harvard, except for Scott.

"Okay, that is bizarre and absolutely impossible," Tammy said. "I mean, just in a basic statistical sense."

"That's why I have to dig, even though I don't want to," Chad said. "When it comes to Scott, as a much wiser and smarter man than I could ever hope to be once said, strange things are afoot at the circle K."

"What if you don't find anything?" Tammy asked.

"I wouldn't be digging if I didn't think there was something there to find," Chad said. "I just hope that, whatever it is, it's something I can help him with."

At 10 AM, Calculus lecture at Felonious Floyd Hall was out for the day, and Chad had a couple of hours until his next class. He found a nice, secluded spot in a meeting room a few doors down from his lecture hall. He pulled his laptop out of his backpack, looked up Thomas Jefferson High School in Glendale Missouri, found the school directory and started calling numbers he thought looked promising.

After he made about five calls, which resulted in various levels of help, he found what he was looking for: one of the administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School gave Chad the phone number for Mrs. June Foray, a woman whom Chad was told could tell him what he wanted to know.

Chad nervously dialed the number, and he got hold of Mrs. Foray immediately, and the next fifteen minutes was spent in Chad introducing himself and asking Mrs. Foray about Scott.

"So, you're telling me," Mrs. Foray said. "That he finished his degree at the University of Iowa, and then moved to Minnesota without ever coming back home?"

"That's how I understand it, ma'am," Chad said. "He finished school, went to work for his mentor, and then, when that job ran out, moved straight from Iowa City to Frostbite Falls."

"Well, I suppose it makes sense," Mrs. Foray said. "There isn't much back home for him anyway."

"Is there anything you can tell me about his past that might be helpful in solving his issues with women?" Chad said.

"Three things come to mind," Mrs. Foray said. "Two of them might be important and the other one is, well, just strange. When Scott was a bit past his sixth birthday, his mother, and my best friend, Anna Cooper, died. Her cause of death was listed as respiratory failure, but that's bull. The coroner put that down because he had to put down something, but the truth was, he had no idea what killed her. None of the doctors had any clue what happened to her, and we searched the entire state of Missouri for an explanation. No one had ever seen anything like it. That's number one, number two is that when Scott was 12 years old, his uncle, whose family was the only people Scott and his father got out to see since the death of his mother, got into a heap of medical trouble and needed surgery. Scott's cousin took out debt to pay the bill, and then put a gun in his mouth and shot himself. That suicide rocked our entire little community here in Glendale. We're a kind, decent, tight-knit people, and that kind of thing just didn't happen here. A few years later, when Scott was in High School, it happened again to Rufus Waltrip. Rufus Waltrip was the older brother of Michael Waltrip, and Michael and Scott were High School best friends."

"Hmmm," Chad said. "That's an awful lot of trauma for someone to take in while so young. You said there were three things, though, what's the third?"

"That I don't have any explanation for, and you'll have to take my word for this because I'm one of only two witnesses to it," Mrs. Foray said. "One night, when Scott was five years old, his mom and I took him to the park to play on the slides. When we got there, we saw a shooting star in the night sky, and it glowed, a bright, red, fiery color, and landed on the ground a short distance away from us. Scott, ever the incredibly curious child, raced after the meteor, and when Anna and myself caught up with him, he had picked it up, and was holding it in his hand."

"Wait a second," Chad said. "If this was a meteor, how could he have picked it up so soon after it crashed to earth? Wasn't it red-hot from entering the atmosphere?"

"Apparently not, because he was holding it in his hand and his hand wasn't burning," Mrs. Foray said. "I've never seen a rock like that one, it was glowing bright red, while, apparently, not being hot. Anna and I just looked at each other, not knowing what to think. We were about to tell him to come along, and to let him bring the meteorite fragment home with him, when the glow started to transfer from the rock to his arms and his body. Anna freaked out, raced to Scott, forced him to drop the rock, and pulled him back from it. By the time she had done so, the glow around the rock was gone, and it was just a piece of stone, dark gray in color, like any other."

"Holy shit!" Chad exclaimed, and then realized his language was inappropriate when speaking to a little old lady. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay," Mrs. Foray said. "Holy shit was my reaction and Anna's reaction too. The two of us looked Scott over for any sign of the red glow we had seen, and we found none. Anna picked up the rock, intending to send it to a laboratory for analysis, and we all went home. Anna died about a year after that night. Scott has no memory of what happened, since he was too young at the time, and before you ask, no, I have no idea what became of the stone. I never saw it again, and never wanted to see it again. Just remembering Scott, standing there, holding that stone as it glowed bright red, I have nightmares about it sometimes."

"So, there were three witnesses to this," Chad said. "One of whom is dead, the other of whom is too young to remember it, and you. Did you report this to anyone?"

"No," Mrs. Foray said. "You're the first person I've told this tale to in 17 years, because you're the first person who wanted to know. Suppose I went to the police, or any authority figure, what the hell do you think they would have thought? The stone looks like a perfectly normal meteorite, these two ladies must have imagined the bright red glow. Maybe they were drinking, or maybe they were on drugs. I'm sure that's what you're thinking now, and it's okay, because I know it's what I would think if someone had told this story to me."

Chad pondered a moment. He found Mrs. Foray to be completely credible, since she had never publicized what she had seen that night to anyone. She also had the self-awareness to understand what others would think if they heard this tale and to keep it to herself.

"Thank you for sharing your story," Chad said.

"No problem," Mrs. Foray said. "Anything to help Scott. One thing I would caution you, though, do not tell the story I told you to anyone else. There is no proof, and no one will believe you. I know Scott well enough to know he's an entirely rational person. If you tell him this story happened to him, he won't believe you because he has no memory of it. When he was 16, I sat him down and tried to tell him about it. I had to be careful, because I wasn't sure how much he would remember. I left that conversation convinced he doesn't remember a thing. You know him well enough to know exactly what his reaction would be if you tried to tell him, I trust?"